This invention relates to the field of protective cases, for portable hand held electronic devices. Portable electronic devices (PEDs) such as cell and satellite phones are being widely used today. Portable electronic devices or PED devices are made to operate with the touch of a stylus pen and/or finger touch to a dizitaler. The use of a stylus is common due to the small size of some of the PED models and/or with the combination of large fingers and hands. This can make texting very frustrating. However a stylus can easily be lost if not attached to the PED how should the stylus pen be attached?
In reference to the prior art of U.S. Pat. No. 5,267,123 Boothroyd; Allen (1993), a stylus compartment is disclosed for a non-held-hand computer case, (a non-hand-held case would rest on a table versus resting in one hand). U.S. Pat. No. 5,267,123 also discloses a portable hand-held PED device to which the stylus pen can be attached. However the patent does not describe how the stylus pen would be attached to the hand-held PED device. There is a description of how the stylus pen is attached to the computer case, However there is no mention of attaching the stylus pen to a cell or satellite phone with a protective case. The stylus pen compartment of U.S. Pat. No. 5,267,123 was disclosed in reference to computers only.
In 1993, no claim is made by Boothroyd; Allen for a telecommunication (cell or satellite phone) protective PED case that incorporates the use of a stylus pen compartment, possibly because in 1993, cell phones were not yet in wide use due to cost restraints. This is possibly a reason as to why U.S. Pat. No. 5,267,123 made no claim at the time for a telecommunications cell phone case, which incorporated the use a of a stylus pen compartment.
The first text message was sent in 1993, and a cell phone in 1993 cost $1099.00. (see bubusinessed.com, History of Mobile Cell Phones—The First Cell Phone To Present T 1993's IBM Simon: The First Smartphone?) By February 1995 they had sold a total of 5 cell phone units.
In reference to the prior art of U.S. Pat. No. 5,576,941 Snell; Jeffery D.—Claim 1 discloses a first and second attachment for a tethered lanyard. The first attachment is tethered to the dizitizer or PED device. The second attachment connects to a stylus pen. However for reasons stated below it is important to some users to have the pen tethered to a protective case verses directly tethered to the PED device. U.S. Pat. No. 5,576,941 under “Background of the Invention” column 2, paragraph 60 states;
“As noted a digitizer pen tether is a welcome addition for some users. However, many users will wish to have untethered digitizer pens, thus manufacturers of hand-held computers may not want to manufacture products with tethered digitizer pens.”
Therefore according to U.S. Pat. No. 5,576,941—PED users who want to use tethered pens are at a disadvantage because their product may be in short supply. A solution to this problem would be to manufacture PED protective cases that do have tethered stylus pens. This way each individual person could decide whether they would like to have a tethered stylus pen with their PED device or not. Persons seeking to be more organized would appreciate a stylus pen tethered to a PED case; therefore I propose to make a claim of attaching a lanyard with the first attachment tethered to a cell phone protective case, versus attaching the lanyard directly to the PED device as claimed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,576,941.